


cherry tree

by beanbun (ramenree)



Category: NINE PERCENT (Band), 乐华七子NEXT | NEX7, 偶像练习生 | Idol Producer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canon Compliant, Implied Sexual Content, Internalized Homophobia, Love/Hate, M/M, Snippets, ramenreesnippet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:07:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27668624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ramenree/pseuds/beanbun
Summary: While most people in the world struggle with finding their soulmates, Justin's already found his.His problem isn't that he can't find the person supposedly made for him; it's admitting that not only is his soulmate a man, but also his rival and teammate, Fan Chengcheng.
Relationships: Fan Chengcheng/Huang Minghao | Justin
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26





	1. bud

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, ramenree here. This pseud (beanbun), will be used to post shorter drabbles and snippets of fics that I probably won't get to for a very long time but that I write anyways to help me relieve stress. I'll be posting here fairly frequently, so stay tuned if you ever want to read quick drabbles of ipd and npc boys!
> 
> This is a snippet of a work-in-progress described by the summary of this fic. I am posting it because I might not be able to get to it in a while, and I might just keep the drabble as a drabble.
> 
> main: [ramenree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ramenree/pseuds/ramenree)  
> 

Chengcheng catches him at the corner store.

“Justin!” he calls, his feet a thundering presence on the quiet Dachang road. Justin’s body jerks at the sound, and for a moment, he considers climbing to his feet and taking off again. To where, he doesn’t know, but what stops him is Zhengting’s reminder the day earlier, that there would be more and more fans waiting for them at every turn now that they were in this stage of the show, and that any wrong move could result in the worst for all of them.

Justin is a selfish person, he’s been reminded of that time and time again, most of all by the boy he’s supposed to call his soulmate, but for Zhengting, he can’t afford to be so. And thus, he stays planted where he’s sitting, on the stairs to the corner store they all buy noodles and candy at.

He watches as Chengcheng, realizing that Justin’s isn’t running anymore, slows down his pace so that he’s more so walking than running. Then, seconds later, he isn’t running at all, but rather trudging towards him, his every step wary and careful.

A part of him hates how he knows this. It’s the stupid, cursed part inside of him that insists that the boy walking towards him is the person the universe has chosen to be his one and only, that’s telling him how Chengcheng is feeling, that has always told him how he’s feeling and what he’s thinking. And similarly, he knows that Chengcheng knows how he’s feeling: confused and angry and helpless. 

He wonders what it’s like to not have anyone else in his head.

“Justin?” he says, more carefully, as he moves into the yellow streetlight.

Justin rolls his head up and looks at him.

He looks, because while he could glare, and he could put all of his anger and frustration and disgust together and rip as hard as he could at the invisible string that connects the two of them, tearing and pulling in vain to sever it, at the end of the day, he’s exhausted. Chengcheng knows this too.

“Are…” he starts, then trails off. Chengcheng’s got his hands tucked in his pockets, but Justin can tell that his hands are clenching and unclenching, much like how his breath keeps catching in his throat as he tries and fails to say something else, escaping as puffs of smoke from his mouth in the cold night air. He wasn’t expecting Justin to be this quiet, perhaps, and Justin can’t blame him, with how vicious he was to him earlier. However, the thing that still strikes him the hardest is how _earnest_ he still is, how stupidly fucking hopeful the look in his eyes are. 

How he _knows_ and _feels_ that he’s _still_ in love with him.

Justin hates him.

He clenches his own jaw, not angry, but shaking with a hurt that’s suddenly erupted from the cracked part inside of himself. “Am I what?”

Chengcheng blinks. His blond hair is damp still from the shower and falling over his eyes. “Are… do you want to come back now?” He shifts on the spot, uncomfortable apparently with how still Justin is.

Once, when they were still trainees, Chengcheng had been away overseas with his family on Justin’s birthday. Justin had been (almost guiltily) happy, because for once he could pass a birthday without thinking of the painful piece of invisible silver connecting the two of them, and perhaps focus on himself, and only himself. But then, Chengcheng had shown up at the end of the night, red-faced and panting heavily from flying back in the middle of the night and sprinting to the Yuehua dormitories, his eyes frantic and hurt because Justin hadn’t told him it was his birthday, but still so full of love and hope and happiness for him that he couldn’t stand it.

That’s how he feels now.

Justin lets his head roll to the side, an awful sneer plastering itself to his mouth. “Do I want to come back now? Not with _you_.”

Chengcheng recoils. He steps back, his eyes flashing with hurt for a second before clouding over with carefulness again. “I never said with me.”

“But I bet you wanted that though, right?” Justin goes on sneering. “I bet that you wish that you could call me your boyfriend, and tell people around here that we’re together, we’re meant to be. That we’re _soulmates_.” He spits the last word out. 

He can see Chengcheng’s face starting to crack, losing the composed look he has each time he does this. He can also feel the words slice into him, can physically _feel_ the damage they do. And he relishes it.

“I bet that you wish we could go back holding hands, that you could kiss me, don’t you?” He laughs harshly. “Or maybe, you want even more? Do you wish that you could sleep with me, Fan Chengcheng? Do you wish that you could fuck me, Fan Chengcheng? Hear me say your name like I belong to you?”

Chengcheng closes his eyes. His hands are out of his pockets now, shaking in clenched fists at his sides. Justin can feel his pain, because it’s mirrored in himself as well, cutting through him with a sharp ferocity that he isn’t sure he can heal himself from this time. Justin is too far gone though, so accustomed to destroying himself that he doesn’t have the means to care for the fact that his soulmate is breaking apart in front of him. 

“You do, don’t you?” Justin presses harder at the wound. “I can feel how much you love me, Fan Chengcheng. You know I can. Just like how you can feel how much I fucking loathe you.”

He pauses. 

“I wish it was anyone else but you. I wish I never had a soulmate.”

And like that, it shatters.

There’s an acute part inside of him that can sense it, the breaking of something deep inside of him, reverberating through him so hard that he can taste it. It tastes like broken glass, splintered in pieces across the road they’re both standing on now.

It hurts so bad for a moment that Justin’s breath lodges in his throat, and he physically can’t do anything except for wallow in the rush of pain that floods through his entire body. His eyes go blurry, and he struggles to blink around the pain, and when it finally subsides, he can tell that his own gaze has misted over.

Chengcheng is still standing there, now swaying a bit. He looks at him, and Justin feels the bond that links them together shake ever so slightly: still there, but shattered, bruised, laying where he crushed it under his feet.

He knows that Chengcheng can feel it too, how broken Justin has rendered the two of them.

He knows this so well that for a moment, he’s afraid, almost, that Chengcheng will retaliate. That he’ll open his mouth and say something that Justin knows will destroy him just as acutely as Justin did to him. It’s horribly selfish that he’s scared, he knows, but when the pain of his own doing is still so fresh against his chest, he doesn’t know if he can handle more.

Justin watches as Chengcheng makes one step towards him. He feels the mounting anger and hurt building up inside of the other boy, how he’s aiming it at the still-intact pieces of Justin’s heart, how Chengcheng realizes for the first time, maybe, how easy it is to hate your soulmate and hurt him the extent he could.

Justin braces himself, closes his eyes, and waits.

But it never comes.

When he opens his eyes again, Chengcheng has turned away from him, and he’s walking quickly back the way he came from, back to the dormitories, back to the warmth and company of the other trainees, back to where their dreams are supposed to be crafted together. He’s leaving him, dragging the remains of their bond behind him, like some sort of wounded soldier gathering the bits of dignity he has left before dying.

Justin watches him, thinking that somehow, Chengcheng not hurting him back hurts even more.

And then, just like that, he’s alone again.

He’s so tired of being alone.  
  



	2. blossom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> random little sequel to cherry tree !!

“Careful.” 

Justin watches as Chengcheng carefully maneuvers them so that Chengcheng is lying up against the headrest of his bed, and Justin is comfortably straddling him right above him. It’s a comfortable change from how Chengcheng was holding him at the edge of the bed earlier, at least, but it does nothing to dispel how nervous Justin still feels inside.

“Hey, hey, hey.” The other boy takes one of Justin’s hands from where they’re pressed down on Chengcheng’s chest. He holds it in both of his own, frowning up at him. “Don’t be nervous.”

Chengcheng knows he’s nervous; of course he does, he’s his soulmate, after all. That’s what soulmates are supposed to do. Justin’s just gotten so used to pretending he doesn’t have one that he’s made himself forget just how bound he is to the boy underneath him. 

“I can’t help it,” he confesses, his voice shaking slightly. “I … I’ve wanted this for so long, and now that I have you … I don’t even know.”

Chengcheng laughed softly. “Well, if you’ve waited long, I’ve died already of old age.” He delicately threads his fingers with Justin’s. “Try not to be nervous; it’s only me.” Then, in a lighter tone. “You being nervous makes me nervous.”

“Ha, ha.” Justin snorted. “Very funny.”

“It’s not just a soulmate joke, I swear. I’m just … I just … fuck, now you’re actually making me nervous.” Chengcheng laughs bashfully, the sound cluttering around the room.

Justin laughs with him, adjusting himself so that he’s more comfortably seated on Chengcheng’s legs. He can feel Chengcheng’s own nervousness inside of him, but for some reason, the sensation soothes him rather than increases his own discomfort. 

He watches as Chengcheng unthreads his fingers from his, moving his hands slowly until they’re resting just by Justin’s hips. He looks up at him, unsure. “You’re sure about this, right?”

Justin pauses for a moment.

If Chengcheng had asked him this a few days ago, a month ago, a year ago, three years ago, then his answer would have been no. In fact, he wouldn’t have allowed the boy to even come close to him for fear of the silver thread that was intertwined around both of their souls. There was a time that Justin was terrified of the feeling of someone else in his head, angry that he couldn’t be his own person like Zhengting or Xukun or Zhangjing or any of the other people he looked up to. That his life would forever have to be dedicated to another boy with dreams just as big as his -- maybe even too big, because he wasn’t sure if there could be enough space for both of their dreams between them. 

“I’m sure,” he says, and his voice doesn’t shake.

Three, almost four years have been long enough for him to come to terms with it all. For him to realize that he doesn’t have to let the idea of his soulmate define him. For him to recognize that by fighting the inevitable bond between them, he was only prolonging the hurt that had walked alongside him ever since that first day in the Yuehua training rooms, when Fan Chengcheng had walked in with all of his splendor and handsomeness and kindness. Fan Chengcheng wasn’t his soulmate because that’s what fate destined for them; he was his soulmate because he was the person made for him.

Chengcheng stares up at him for a moment, his eyes glistening. Then, he pulls Justin into him so that his face is buried in his chest, his breath fanning over the exposed stretch of skin along his collarbone where he had tugged his shirt from earlier. “Okay. I need you to be sure.”

His breath is warm, and it tickles Justin’s skin when it falls on it. Justin wraps his arms around the other man’s neck, swallowing from how intimate the action feels. “I  _ am _ sure.”

“Yes, but it’s hard sometimes for me to believe it.” Chengcheng laughs dryly. “I’ve loved you for so long, but it’s only recently that I can try to believe that you love me back.”

Justin feels the shred of doubt implant itself into his own heart; the pain that runs through him is sharper, clearer, less clouded over by layers of doubt that he stowed around himself to protect himself from the connection he shares with Chengcheng. But now that more things have come clear, and more things have fallen into place where they belong, it feels right that the feelings are so clear.

“You can believe it this time.” Justin presses the pads of his fingers to Chengcheng’s jawline. He doesn’t attempt to raise his head up, because he doesn’t know what he’d do if he could see Chengcheng’s eyes now. “I love you.”

Chengcheng hums into his neck. “Say it again?”

“I love you.” Justin says it more firmly now, with less hesitation. It feels right to do so.

Chengcheng shivers, trembles so hard that Justin is afraid he’ll shatter apart from where he’s holding Justin in his arms. He can feel Chengcheng’s heart clench on itself with all the pain he’s stowed away over the years, then smooth itself out again until it’s back into the fluid rope that connects his own heart with his. 

“Say it again,” he whispers. There’s something wet on Justin’s collarbone. “Please.”

“I love you,” he says again, softer.

“Again.”

“I love you.”

Justin repeats it for him, and he lets Chengcheng cry into the expanse of his skin, the feeling of his soulmate finally accepting him ripping through him with a sort of painful catharsis that reminds Justin just how much Fan Chengcheng loved him. 

He says it again and again, says it when Chengcheng finally raises his head and presses his mouth to his. Says it when Chengcheng presses him down on the bed and worships each and every inch of his body like it’s something incredibly precious under his hands. Says it when Chengcheng’s sweaty hair is in his own face, and his own voice is cracking with the force of how hard he’s trying to still hang on. His nails are digging into Chengcheng’s back, his face glistening from sweat, his entire body stretched as taut as a wire.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” he sobs, and Chengcheng hears it, intertwining Justin’s fingers with his own again.

“I love you too,” he says softly back, much much later. He presses his forehead to his and smiles against his lips as he takes Justin apart so acutely underneath him. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am in love with soulmates, and in particular, chengstin soulmates
> 
> currently working on the zhengyikuns sequel to blue is the colour of melancholy, and this was my indulgent snippet hehe

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Leave a comment or kudos if you like; they really motivate me. As a small warning, I wrote this at 3 am, so if I realize later that it's absolute garbage, I might just delete it haha. There's actually a second snippet I want to write in this au, so I might add to this as well in the future!
> 
> [ramenree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ramenree/pseuds/ramenree)  
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/ramenreee) | [cc](https://curiouscat.me/ramenree)  
> 


End file.
